Saturday, April 4, 2009

Mycology - Mushrooms!

The magic of mushrooms has touched us at Syrendell this year. Mycology is utterly fascinating...are they plants, animals, neither? So many varieties, colors, shapes....fabulous fungi.

Our own backyard is filled with different mushrooms throughout the year. This week, we noticed that with the warmer, drier weather, the mushrooms are beginning to curl up and disappear.

We dissected a mushroom, observed a curled-up-dried mushroom, made a mushroom spore print, did a mushroom form drawing, read books on mycology, and did block crayon drawings. Two of our cousins came over and joined us in creating beautiful, crayoned fungi! We also read an adorable book that features a sprite who lives under a mushroom is Naming Renick by Mamaroots (which you can purchase in her Etsy shop).

Hi Katya! Yes, that's the book that we used...Katya's Book of Mushrooms. We found it at the library and loved it so much, I've ordered a copy through Amazon. A definite must-have book for homeschooling!

Hello, I have been following your blog and I love the flow that you have with your homeschool family life, do u use any curriculum, if not I may say you came up with wonderful ideas, I am starting with my LO of almost 2 years establishing circle time and nature table, learning a lot from u guys and encouraging us families to continue.Thanks,

Hi tortugafeliz! We don't use one set curriculum. We are inspired by Waldorf philosophy and we include much of what we already love and know how to do in our weekly rhythms (my husband and I are artists and musicians, he has an MD and I have an MA in education administration). If you send me an email at thetanfamily@msn.com, I can give you more specifics about some resources that we highly recommend. And thank you, everyone for the nice comments.